Until the acquisition of great territorial revenues by the East India Company, the trade with India was carried on upon the common principles of commerce,—­namely, by sending out such commodities as found a demand in the India market, and, where that demand was not adequate to the reciprocal call of the European market for Indian goods, by a large annual exportation of treasure, chiefly in silver.  In some years that export has been as high as six hundred and eighty thousand pounds sterling.  The other European companies trading to India traded thither on the same footing.  Their export of bullion was probably larger in proportion to the total of their commerce, as their commerce itself bore a much larger proportion to the British than it does at this time or has done for many years past.  But stating it to be equal to the British, the whole of the silver sent annually from Europe into Hindostan could not fall very short of twelve or thirteen hundred thousand pounds a year.  This influx of money, poured into India by an emulation of all the commercial nations of Europe, encouraged industry and promoted cultivation in a high degree, notwithstanding the frequent wars with which that country was harassed, and the vices which existed in its internal government.  On the other hand, the export of so much silver was sometimes a subject of grudging and uneasiness in Europe, and a commerce carried on through such a medium to many appeared in speculation of doubtful advantage.  But the practical demands of commerce bore down those speculative objections.  The East India commodities were so essential for animating all other branches of trade, and for completing the commercial circle, that all nations contended for it with the greatest avidity.  The English company flourished under this exportation for a very long series of years.  The nation was considerably benefited both in trade and in revenue; and the dividends of the proprietors were often high, and always sufficient to keep up the credit of the Company’s stock in heart and vigor.

[Sidenote:  How trade carried on since.]

But at or very soon after the acquisition of the territorial revenues to the English company, the period of which may be reckoned as completed about the year 1765, a very great revolution took place in commerce as well as in dominion; and it was a revolution which affected the trade of Hindostan with all other European nations, as well as with that in whose favor and by whose power it was accomplished.  From that time bullion was no longer regularly exported by the English East India Company to Bengal, or any part of Hindostan; and it was soon exported in much smaller quantities by any other nation.  A new way of supplying the market of Europe, by means of the British power and influence, was invented:  a species of trade (if such it may be called) by which it is absolutely impossible that India should not be radically and irretrievably ruined, although our possessions there were to be ordered and governed upon principles diametrically opposite to those which now prevail in the system and practice of the British company’s administration.